4/15/09

I'm pretty certain tomato pie is an old-fashioned recipe. And there are a few recipes on the web for it. This recipe comes about from my experience, as a child eating heirloom tomatoes with sugar and mayo on them. With summer fast approaching (thank goodness!) that means abundant tomatoes will be here. Heirloom tomatoes are one of my favorite, and Whole Foods has some of the best around. Since I am not a gardener, playing with dirt is so not me. I highly doubt I ever will be a gardener, so thankfully there is a Whole Foods that sells nice, juicy heirloom tomatoes in the summer. Plus I have a few clients that love to share their fast growing summer tomatoes with me.
I have some distant family that is Canadian and spent some of my childhood summers in the Thousand Islands region. I clearly remember summertime dinner being fresh, juicy tomatoes with cracked pepper and sugar (yes sugar), slab of sharp cheddar cheese & mayo, and corn on the cob slathered in butter. No, we weren't poor, it was just the way they did a summer meal from time to time. Man, that was good and fresh. Ever since those summers I've always loved a good tomato and sharp cheddar cheese sandwich with a hint of pepper and mayo.
So my latest creation, or craving, comes from some of those memories. Keep in mind, this pie is very rich and full of fat. A treat of sorts. Best to eat it cold, not hot from the oven, well, unless you're daring. Look at this money shot. This is one pie that tastes perfect when eaten cold; like a tomato & cheese sandwich with crust!

I like to keep my deep dish piecrust ready to go and sitting in the freezer till I’m ready to use; it cooks up better that way. I've also used premade pie crust and they work just as fine, but they also need to be kept cold till ready to bake.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, 350 for convection. Slice up the tomatoes in rather thick slices and place them on paper towels to absorb some of the excess moisture.
Get out pie crust from freezer, place sliced tomatoes over crust; do a double layer of sliced tomatoes. Recipe by dawn finicane of vanillakitchen.blogspot.com Then sprinkle with an ever-so-light sprinkling of white sugar, then some freshly cracker black pepper.
In a bowl combine mayonnaise with shredded cheddar cheese, and the chopped up bacon. Spoon over tomatoes; try to get it spread evenly over the tomatoes, but don’t push down.
Bake for about 30 minutes. Mine was done at the 25 minute mark, so best to keep an eye on it at the 20 minute mark.
I let my pie cool down about an hour before slicing into it. It really does taste best when it’s refrigerated and served cold. Serve with a nice glass of white wine.
Note: I love my crust nice and dark brown, if you don’t like it that way then cook it less. This is a really rich pie, so cut the slices smaller than you would an apple or other fruit pie. (not the size I did in the above photo).

75 comments:

I used to looove tomato and cheese sandwiches. I went to Toronto as a child and also remember the corn. Is corn a specialty there? Anyway, delicious looking pie. Thanks for reminding me of things I can't eat! :)

your summer meal did not sound like poor food at all but rather people who were enjoying the food they had available.

I think it would kill me to have to wait for this pie to cool down before eating it. Growing up I was the one with the burnt mouth because I was dumb enough to be playing hot potato with a cookie and then throw it into my mouth.

Looks wonderful and heirloom tomatoes especially bradywine are still one of my favorites.

I've heard of tomato pie but I've never senn a picture of one or really ever seen a recipe. Since tomatoes are my favorite veggie and yes the summer will bring a bounty of them I'm bookmarking this, it looks wonderful! I love your creations!!

My mom made something similar to this when I was growing up and I remember dreading that it would be on my plate, but now looking at it again I find myself craving a slice. This looks wonderful and I love how perfectly golden the cheese turned out. This is gorgeous Dawn! I'm with you on the dirt thing. My hubby planted my garden for me ;)

Just wanted to say thank you for this recipe! I googled "tomato pie" and found your blog that way.We had some beautiful tomatoes that needed to be eaten soon and your recipe was just what we needed. To say my family LOVED it would be putting it mildly. It was absolutely wonderful!Thanks again!

Ok, I just made this. It is obscenely good. I didn't have cheddar cheese in the house so I used mozzarella. I'm sure it changed the flavor but it was still amazing. My BF is kissing my feet over it. Seriously. BTW, someone mentioned they thought this looked "healthy". Yikes, no! There's a cup of mayo and a cup of cheese in it, plus bacon lol. But well worth the splurge as a treat :) I'll be using this recipe again and again (but not to frequently or I'll gain back everything I just lost on Weight Watchers :P)

My tomatoes are ripening faster than I can pick them. I have 4 very healthy over abundant plants. After finding this Blog I loved the idea of Tomato Pie. I made 4 and talk about good... They turned out beautifully and tasted wonderful. The ones I shared with my Neighbors got rave reviews. This will be a regular at our house as long as the Tomatoes last. I'm wondering if you could make them and then freeze them? Wouldn't it be wonderful along about January to pull one out to eat and taste the wonderful fruits of your Garden again?

Just wanted to say I've been making this recipe frequently since I last posted a year ago. This year, I grew my own heirloom tomatoes and that made a world of difference in the recipe. This really has become a staple recipe in our home. Thanks so much for this one!

about vanilla sugar blog

Unique eats, creative recipes, as simple as possible.What drives me to create? Seeing dishes in restaurants, meals created on TV, recipes in cookbooks/online, and I always think to myself why didn’t they add this or why did they leave out that? Love to question, love to research, and love to learn about combining different flavors and textures in recipes.Recipe creations please email: vanillasugarblog@aol.com